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Shoes, sustainable practices and social media know-how are the cornerstones at GDS

by Lorenzo Molina — July 19, 2016

Footwear and accessories show GDS is warming up the engines for its upcoming edition, set to take place from 26-28 July at Messe Düsseldorf. This is the first edition where the new order of days will apply, after the show decided to skip the Fridays.

A bulk of complementary in-show activities are set to happen, alongside the showcase of footwear collections for the spring/summer 2017 season. On July 28, GDS will host ‘Green Shoes for a Sustainable Life’, an international footwear workshop aiming to spread sustainable strategies among shoe companies that are adoptable and could increase their brand value through the eyes of consumers. It is organized by the European Confederation of the Footwear Industry together with other European partners of the project ‘Step 2 Sustainability’.

The fifth edition of the FashionBloggerCafé shoedition will take place in hall 2. In cooperation with fashion platform Styleranking, the trade show adds a new twist to the blogger concept with the GDS Trend Detectors kick-off. Two fashion bloggers –Anaïs Eleni (Anaïs Anaïs) and Tamara Cueva (The Loud Couture)– will highlight key shoe trends and personal highlights on all three days on GDS’ own Instagram account. On Thursday, five fashion bloggers will create their personal looks to match the shoes of exhibiting labels and present them on a runway show.

Styleranking will also support the show by providing insights on social media on two consulting sessions that deal with topics such as the impact of social media strategies on brand success or how fashion labels can selectively leverage different social media channels for their own marketing purposes. The sessions are taking place on the first two days of the trade show.

The three main segmentation concepts of the show –Highstreet, Studio and Pop Up– remain unchanged. Among the 740 participating brands at GDS, there are names such as Birkenstock, Skechers, Teva, Timberland, Unisa, Camel Active, Vagabond and Kangaroos.

Parallel to GDS, sourcing trade show Tag it! will present the trends in private labeling. Some of the participating exhibitors are Nanjing FJA and Quanzhou Esin from China; Tropical Shoes and Sonali from Bangladesh; Trading Places and Raj Shoes from India; and Shafi Lifestyle and Firhaj from Pakistan.